HBO Is to Blame for Yet Another 'Game of Thrones' Leak

Despite the massive hacking scandal happening over at HBO right now, it seems the network is its own worst enemy when it comes to leaking Game of Thrones. Once again, a new episode has leaked online way ahead of schedule, and HBO itself is squarely to blame — not some mysterious hacking group named Mr. Smith.

Early yesterday (August 15), HBO Nordic and HBO España aired the sixth episode of GoT Season 7 nearly one week ahead of schedule. The 71-minute episode was accidentally available to subscribers for about an hour before being removed, even though it wasn't due to air until Sunday (August 21).

"We have learned that the upcoming episode of Game of Thrones was accidentally posted for a brief time on the HBO Nordic and HBO España platforms," an HBO spokesperson said in a statement. "The error appears to have originated with a third party vendor and the episode was removed as soon as it was recognized. This is not connected to the recent cyber incident at HBO in the U.S."

Of course, with this being 2017, the leaked episode quickly has made its way onto various torrent sites and streaming services, with the leaked file reportedly even being in HD. This all comes as HBO recently leaked Episode 4 ahead of time by mistake.

As previously reported, HBO recently experienced a massive security breach, in which hackers reportedly stole 1.5 terabytes of data from the company's servers. Most recently, the hacking group leaked new episodes of the upcoming season of Curb Your Enthusiasm over a month before they were set to air. Despite this, however, HBO has refused to negotiate with the group calling itself Mr. Smith.